Electronics Components: Standard Resistor Values

Most resistors used in electronics have four stripes of color. The first three stripes indicate the resistance value, and the fourth stripe indicates the tolerance. Some resistors have five stripes of color, with four representing the resistance value and the last one the tolerance.

In theory, there are 100 different combinations of colors for the first two bands, covering the range of values from 00 through 99. However, in practice there are only a few color combinations that are commonly encountered. These color combinations represent standardized values that allow manufacturers to produce resistors that will be useful in a wide variety of applications.

For example, take the value 47, represented by the color code yellow-violet. 47 happens to be one of the preferred resistor numbers, so you can easily obtain resistors of 4.7, 47, 470, 4.7K, 47K, 470K, and 4.7M.

But 45 is not one of the preferred values. Thus you won’t find 45 or 450 resistors.

Although there are several different systems for standardizing preferred resistor values, the most common system uses 12 different standard values:

First Two Colors

Standard Value

Brown – black

10

Brown – red

12

Brown – green

15

Brown – gray

18

Red – red

22

Red - Violet

27

Orange – Orange

33

Orange – white

39

Yellow – violet

47

Green – blue

56

Blue – gray

68

Gray – red

82

These values are standardized values that are designed to provide a wide range of resistance values. Although not exact, each value is approximately 1.2 times larger than the previous value.